Constructed in layers of acrylic paint, Henderson removes the texture of each application of paint with rollers and trowels before allowing it to dry and applying the next. Building up and then meticulously smoothing down, this technique produces an even surface, evincing the layered construction, but leaving the order and relationship between the layers indeterminate. In a final gesture, Henderson applies a thin band of oil paint to the entire perimeter of the canvas, re-framing conceptually and formally the piece within a traditional realm of painting. The painterly gesture is not necessarily foregrounded, expectations of presence and absence, doing and undoing are overturned.
Chicago-based artist John Henderson has developed an engagement with abstract painting for the last two decades. Making use of a variety of technologies and techniques— acrylic and oil painting, molds, castings, digital printing, video, and photography—Henderson reforms, revises, and reproduces the manual painterly expression, invoking Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism while acknowledging a distance from their unmediated practice.